A Lust For Lead (18 page)

The sound of Covenant’s nightly chorus rumbled eerily through the town, its gentle rhythm surging in and out. In and out.
Save for where the torch fires burned and smoked, the town lay in absolute darkness. Dawn was still a good many hours away and not even the brush of false light touched the horizon; the sky was smooth and black as a sheet of obsidian.
The invigilators of the night watch were used to feeling uneasy in the town’s strange environment. They were familiar with the half-heard sounds, the shadowy figures sometimes glimpsed in the distance, and the ever-present sense that they were being watched; but tonight they felt a new uneasiness disturb them. A presence, unseen by all, moved through the town, cloaked behind a veil of shadows. It moved, wraith-like, from the door of the Grande hotel to a place near the edge of town, where an old clapboard house creaked and groaned in time to the town’s sombre melody. The hem of his long coat brushed in the dirt as he crossed the threshold, making a soft noise, like a whisper.
Once inside the house and out of sight from any passing patrol, the figure doffed his veil of shadows, shedding it like a skin. It broke into pieces as it fell away from him, each one temporarily assuming a vaguely humanoid form before it melted properly into the dark with a faint and despairing wail. Whisperer paused to straighten his collar before venturing deeper into the house.
They were waiting for him as he had expected they would be.
Three had deigned to answer his summons and they stood with their backs to the wall: tall, dark, wraith-like figures, their bodies bathed in a nimbus of grey smoke that shone with a gloaming light. Their faces they hid beneath the wide brim of their hats but Whisperer recognised them by the guns they wore.
He began to speak: ‘I am honoured that you agreed–’
‘Spare us your flattery.’
The speaker’s voice rumbled like distant gunfire.
‘We grow tired of your rituals,’ the Cordite on the left hissed.
‘Why have you called on us again?’ the middle one asked.
The three demons smelled bitterly of gunsmoke, dust and decay. With untold years of experience behind him, Whisperer was able to sense the demonic power that radiated from them. It was something raw and untamed. There was nothing certain in dealing with them but still, he had come this far; he could not turn back now.
‘It is time we agreed on my fee,’ he said.
The one in the middle raised his head slightly, allowing eyes that burned like smouldering coals to be seen beneath the shadow of his hat. He was the most powerful of the three. Jacob Priestley glared at Whisperer and his voice rumbled from the pit of his throat: ‘The terms of our agreement have already been made.’
‘Not so.’ Whisperer argued. ‘We have not properly agreed on the number of souls that I will receive for my services.’
Priestley’s breath rasped harshly in his dry lungs. ‘We agreed to spare you your existence. That is all you have any right to expect. We are not Faustians to be bargained with.’
‘It is only that we have no use for the souls you desire that we offer them to you at all,’ the Cordite on his left said.
Whisperer had observed during his previous dealings with them how they spoke as if sharing a common mind. Shane Ennis had good reason to fear becoming one of them.
The one on the right offered him a sneer, parched lips stretching back to expose yellowed teeth that were long as fangs. ‘We feed you our scraps, soul-monger. Like the dog you are.’
Whisperer kept his expression neutral. A certain degree of taunting was to be expected from the one on the right. He was Michael Brett, the man that Vendetta had come to kill, and his death in the first tournament had done nothing to improve his angry disposition. Besides, the Cordites were young and inexperienced in Hell’s ways. They had no idea of the value of what Whisperer was taking from them, had no idea that he was robbing them blind.
‘I have brought you Ennis, and the girl, Chastity,’ he said. ‘I’m sure that by now you have had chance to see that she is worthy of your attention.’
Their silence was proof enough.
‘I believe that twenty souls is not an unreasonable finder’s fee.’ Whisperer said.
Priestley breathed out, expelling a cloud of noxious-smelling grey smoke. ‘Name them,’ he said.
Whisperer did as he was bade, reciting the list that he had committed to memory. He did not really want them all. The only man whose soul he really wanted out of the deal was Nathaniel’s.
When they had first met on the battlefield at James Point in 1861, Nathaniel had been an unremarkable officer, keen to make a name for himself. Whisperer had been stalking the countryside, scavenging among the dead and the wounded for souls to steal. He had struck a deal with Nathaniel. He had offered to turn him into a great man and had promised him money and power and all of his worldly desires. All he had asked for in return was the blood sacrifice of sixty men. To his immense satisfaction, Nathaniel had eagerly agreed.
Whisperer had tutored him patiently since then, encouraging him to delve deeper into the Satanic Arts and uncover more of its mysteries. Every demonic pact, every gift he accepted from the Underworld, had increased the value of his soul and now Whisperer was ready to trade it in at Hell’s markets and make a very good return on his investment.
The other nineteen names were just the icing on the cake, and Whisperer would just as happily dispense with them if it became necessary. The only reason he named them at all was to disguise his interest in Nathaniel. He knew that if the Cordites ever found out how much Nathaniel was worth to him they would try to keep him for themselves.
He almost smiled as he named the last name on his list. ‘Castor Buchanan. That is, if you allow it.’
‘Buchanan means nothing to us,’ the Cordite on the left replied.
‘You may take him.’ Brett said.
‘Thank you. I should like to take five of the ones who are already dead now, as a show of good faith.’
Priestley nodded his assent. He did not even seem interested in trying to haggle, which made Whisperer suspicious that they were plotting to double-cross him. It was not surprising given the Cordites’ nature and their inexperience with Hell’s laws. He could only hope that they continued to underestimate him long enough for him to get what he wanted and escape.
He kept an even expression as he thanked Priestley for his co-operation. The Cordite’s eyes burned into his malevolently. ‘Do not seek to cheat us, soul-monger,’ he said.
‘Or you will learn the limit of our patience,’ the one on his left finished.
Whisperer bowed to them obsequiously, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts. One by one, the three Cordites melted back into the shadows. Whisperer left the house and returned to the Grande in secret.

By dawn, Shane had given up any hope of being sprung from his cell. He did not know what had happened; all he knew was that something had gone wrong. He had not heard any shots in the night, nor any other sound of a commotion that might have indicated Vendetta had been caught, but that silence only made things worse.
He could only conclude that she had forsaken him.
Buchanan arrived with his breakfast shortly after sunrise. He was in a bright mood and walked with a spring in his step that told Shane immediately what must have happened.
‘You knew didn’t you?’ Shane said.
‘Knew that it was time for breakfast? Of course I knew, it happens every morning.’
Shane scowled at him but said nothing more. He did not have long to wait before Buchanan’s ego got the better of him and forced him to confess. ‘I’ve been on to you from the start,’ he boasted. ‘You think I’d let you walk away the other day not realising you were up to something? You forget how well I know you Shane.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I didn’t have to do anything. Your girlfriend was only too willing to turn her back on you once I’d told her what sort of gratitude she could expect. She’s got a pretty low opinion of you, did you know that?’
‘Must have, to have believed your word over mine.’
‘Sticks and stones, Shane. Sticks and stones.’
He slid the breakfast tray under the door but Shane had already lost his appetite. The greasy smell of the food made his stomach turn.
‘You’ll fight Tom Freeman today and then tomorrow you’ll fight Chastity. I don’t know if you can beat her but I don’t think that really matters. Either way, they’ll take you.’
‘Do you really think you can buy your way back into their favour?’ Shane snapped.
‘I think I know them better these days than you do.’ Buchanan replied.
Shane wondered what he meant by that but Buchanan offered no further clues. He left Shane alone and the solitude closed in around him like an unwelcome embrace. He got to his feet and paced back and forth in his cell, feeling restless. His anger formed a tightness in his chest that he had no way of releasing and, in his helplessness, that anger slowly turned into despair. He ignored the breakfast tray and sat on the edge of his bunk and put his head in his hands. He had pinned his hopes on having escaped by now, but fate had slapped him down.
As the sun rose higher, it pierced through the bars of his window and fell across his face. He blinked against the harshness of the light and the memories that had been lurking behind his eyes came forth to engulf him.

The sun was his enemy, but it was also his friend.
It occupied a pale and cloudless sky, beneath which the desert shimmered as if the ground was boiling in the heat, evaporating into the scalding air. It was a hundred-and-thirty at least and Shane’s throat was so dry that he almost choked on every breath he took.
He had never known a thirst so bad.
The sun was his enemy, cooking him to death in the heat of its radiation, but it was also his friend. For as long as it gave him light to see by he could follow the tracks on the ground and hope to catch up with Buchanan.
Buchanan: who had water and who would share it with him, one way or another.
The trail had led him away from the place where he had abandoned Fletcher and had taken him through a range of dry hills to a basin valley on the opposite side. Once, from his vantage on the hilltops, Shane had seen a figure in the distance, a man leading a horse, but since then he had seen nothing but tracks in the dirt and he knew that he was still behind by a couple of hours.
The sun beat down on him, sapping him of his strength. His horse was too tired to carry him and he abandoned much of the arsenal that he had taken from Fletcher. He threw away all but the most essential supplies, lightening the load to conserve his horse’s stamina.
The miles disappeared underfoot. The sun was merciless and the terrain blistering. Shane wondered how Appleby and his men were holding up. A man used up four gallons of water a day in an environment such as this and Appleby had six men. They could not be carrying enough water to last them more than a couple of days each, which meant that they had to be replenishing it from somewhere but, wherever it was, Shane could not find it. He had heard that Appleby had taught his men to recycle the water from their own urine and might have tried it himself if only he was able to piss more than a single, reluctant drop.
He crossed the basin valley and climbed into rocky hills once more. The afternoon was fading rapidly and Shane knew that he had only a few more hours of light left, after which he would be unable to find Buchanan and would probably die. His thirst began to make him weary with delirium and, as his mind faded, so he felt his guns rise into his consciousness.
We can end this pain, they seemed to say. Join with us.
‘Never,’ Shane muttered. He was not fooled by the apparent simplicity of their proposal. The succour they offered was not the helping hand of a friend, but a swift and merciful bullet to the head. He did not want help like that.
You belong to us, he fancied they told him. Do not deny that it is so.
‘I don’t need you,’ he said aloud. ‘You need me.’
Save your lies for others; you cannot lie to yourself.
Shane snarled wordlessly, unable to answer them this time. He tried to convince himself that it was just his thirst driving him crazy, that the voices of his guns were all in his imagination. In his delirium, he misread the tracks on the ground and unknowingly struck out in the wrong direction.
Weary and dying of thirst, he wandered across the hillside until he came to a steep gully that plunged between sheer rocks down into a sheltered box canyon. The rocks had been warmed all day by the sun and radiated that heat back out into the evening air, making the canyon feel like the inside of an oven.
Natural wariness made Shane draw one of his revolvers. The canyon was filled with an eerie, expectant silence. A fine white sand covered its floor and the tracks of several horses were clearly marked. For the first time, Shane realised his error. Instead of following the tracks towards their source, he had gotten turned around and followed them back along the route they had come from. For reasons that did not immediately make sense to Shane’s sun-baked brain, Appleby and his men had diverted from their course to visit this canyon.
Curious to know why, Shane left his horse behind and proceeded deeper into the canyon alone. In the shadow of the cliffside, he spied a narrow crack in the rock into which several footprints could be seen to have entered and returned. Shane got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside. It was dark and he felt his way with his hands, touching smooth, cool rocks. His fingertips came away feeling wet.
There was a source of water near the back of the cave. Shane pressed his lips to the surface of the rock and sucked at it. The taste was brackish but it slaked his thirst and he pulled off his neckerchief and used it to soak up the water, wringing it out into his hat so that he could carry it back to his horse.
The animal was drinking from it when a shot rang out in the narrow space of the canyon. Shane’s hat was plucked from his grasp and it fell to the ground, spilling water from a hole that had been shot neatly straight through it.
Shane’s gun was drawn and aimed before the hat landed, but he checked his fire when he recognised the man who had shot at him.
Castor Buchanan led his horse down through the gully. ‘Well, well, well. Shane Ennis. We do have a nasty habit of running into each other, don’t we?’

Sitting in his cell, Shane turned his hat over in his hands. He should have killed Buchanan that day. Instead, he had joined forces with him again and they had carried on the next day in search of Appleby and his men. They had caught up with them too, but that was a battle that Shane was not ready to remember just yet and he turned his thoughts to the present instead.
Despite all the passion with which he had sought to escape from Covenant, he felt strangely resigned to being there now that his hopes of leaving had been dashed. He contemplated fighting Tom Freeman not with the trepidation with which he had faced John Devlin and Valentino Rodrigues, but instead with a cool sense of detachment such as he had known in his prime.
He no longer felt afraid of becoming one of the Fastest Guns and that disturbed him faintly, but not as much as it would have a couple of days ago. His emotions felt drained. His will to resist had been broken.
Shane was all but ready to submit.
He was left in solitude until shortly before eleven when Buchanan came to collect him. He observed the untouched breakfast tray and the change in Shane’s demeanour and could not resist the urge to gloat. ‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘You’ll thank me when this is over.’
Shane said nothing. He followed Buchanan out into the sunlight and sat himself down on the edge of the boardwalk in his customary spot. To his irritation, Buchanan chose to sit next to him. ‘I don’t want to miss the look on your face when your girlfriend dies,’ he said.
‘She might win.’
Buchanan laughed at him. ‘Are you still holding out a hope that she might change her mind and rescue you? Naiveté is something for the young, Shane.’
His words cut Shane’s pride, all the more so because they bore an element of the truth. Across the street, the invigilators were making ready for Chastity’s arrival. There were twice as many of them as there had been yesterday and more than half of them were taking up positions where they were partially shielded behind cover. After her performance yesterday, they were taking no chances this time.
Vendetta waited patiently on the opposite side of the road from Shane. She caught him looking at her but turned her head and pretended not to have seen him. Her expression shut him out, giving him no clues as to what had passed between them. He might have been a million miles from her for all she cared; her only thoughts now were to the up-coming match.
It was clear that she was nervous. She checked and re-checked her revolver, her holster, her boots. She got up and paced a few steps before walking back to where she had started and sitting down again, only to rise a few seconds later. There was nobody in Covenant who expected her to win this fight and Shane suspected that she entertained no illusions either. He did not pity her. She had made her choices and now she would face the consequences.
All eyes turned as the door of the Grande opened and Nathaniel emerged, leading Chastity by the hand. The little girl moved woodenly, eyes vacant, tripping as she was led across the porch. Her new nanny, followed by Whisperer, came out after her and took up position at the side of the porch. Madison had fixed her hair up fancy with a few tight curls mixed among her black and blond tresses and Buchanan whistled to himself in approval.
‘She’s a finer bit of pussy than Bethan, that’s for sure. And a real screamer,’ he added, nudging Shane in the ribs. ‘You can see why Nathaniel’s kept her.’
She had a healthy glow about her this morning, Shane noted. Her cheeks looked rosy and her manner was similar to how it had been when Kip had been alive. Money and power, Shane decided, could end any sorrow.
He watched as Nathaniel walked Chastity onto the crossroads and set her at her mark. Vendetta joined them, going to her position like a convict walking to the gallows. Her lips were set in a hard, thin line, her eyes fixed cold. Mary Elizabeth Becker had died already that morning and all that was left was Vendetta, sworn to her revenge. She marked out her place on the ground, kicking at the dirt with her toes.
She nodded to Nathaniel to tell him she was ready.
‘Girl’s got nerve.’ Buchanan said. ‘Three-to-one she doesn’t even clear the leather.’
Shane thought they were generous odds but he kept his silence. He waited, feeling the tension as Nathaniel drew Chastity’s pocket revolver and loaded it with a single bullet. He did it plainly and in the open so that his invigilators could see it happen. Then he snapped the loading gate closed and inserted the gun into Chastity’s holster. She gave no sign of even noticing he was there.
Nathaniel hurried to the side of the road.
He had barely gone three steps when Vendetta reached for her gun. The shot rang out loud and clear.